The Mosh Pit 7.23.10: Judgment Day

Posted by Dan Haggerty on 07.23.2010

The year was 1986 and everything changed for heavy metal as some of the most influencial albums were unleashed. We look at Metallica’s Master Of Puppets, Slayer’s Reign In Blood, Fates Warning’s Awaken The Guardian, Kreator’s Pleasure To Kill plus many more from Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Candlemass, Sodom, Destruction, Grim Reaper, and Megadeth!

Hey there again and what the hell. This is old man Haggerty coming at you again, or at least that is how I feel this week. Now that I have taken some much needed time away from work I've started working out diligently to get myself in shape. And I'll tell you what, this 41 year old body does NOT approve. No... I just couldn't walk. I had to try jogging and a full exercise routine. And exercise set to death metal... well you do the math. In fact, my body is outright rebelling this week. That's OK though, as I'll have the last laugh.

In better personal news, I saw Iron Maiden last weekend, and as expected they kicked 100% ass. I'll tell you what, I was a bit disappointed the set list was almost 95% newer material but it didn't matter. The fact is Maiden could play the phone book at it would rock the fuck out. But it was cool to hear something different and frankly, I thought the material was better live than from the albums. Do yourself a favor and make sure you see them live at least once. I, of course, bought a bunch of cool swag from shirts to a great Killers flag. Man, I have way to many concert shirts now.

But you're not here for my light ramblings, or to hear about the massive Bolt Thrower Marathon (awesome thrash/death band) I have been doing this week. You're here for metal!

Before I get to feedback, just let me say that I'm skipping the text this week simply because I realized that it was redundant to what I covered with the albums. The story of 1986 IS the albums. Not only did we get a ton of essential classics, but this year is so damn good several are critical to the history of metal. So I just dropped the extras to let the albums do the talking.

And really, metal can do just that – Do the talking for itself.








Interesting answer Dan, and maybe I should check with you what you've been reading, as I'm an avid reader myself. Maybe 411 should have a books section!

A wonderfully detailed article too, recollecting the history of thrash, and I'm assuming this is around the same time most of the other subgenres were forming too(power etc..) having their own histories. I've listened to most of the big thrash bands so it would great checking out those I haven't listened to. I'm also wondering if you can find any of these fanzines online, a scanned version or something as that would be great to check out. - Posted By: Cyber

A book section would be cool, but there would likely only be a few of us in it! Then again, if there is one thing I've learned is to not assume anything here so maybe it would go over huge… Either way we'll have to talk books someday. Hell, I should do a column on music books someday as well when this is done.

The genres are really starting to take their first steps, and I plan to go into more detail for in 1988 (next year will be about the rise and fall of glam). As for Fanzines, I have honestly no idea but it would be cool of someone did do that. Today websites fill that role so I doubt you'll find anything newer, sadly enough. Although, and this is the honest truth, I've told Mitch that if I ever do a metal news column I would basically try to make it like the fanzines, just updated for modern times. I think it would be really cool. Unfortunately it is a matter of openings, what the zone needs, and most importantly time available.

I'll check into those old fanzines though for you man.




The Top Metal Albums From 1986
Whether it's a trip down memory lane or new to you, here is some great albums to check out



Sodom - Obsessed By Cruelty




Less black and choking than the initial EP, Sodom comes out of the gates with this debut in full on thrash cum speed cum shock and awe. Faster than hell and ripped with alcohol, what the band lacks in anything called songwriting they make up for in riff construction and general riff deconstruction – done fast and furious. I don't know, it took me a long time to get into this one, sort of like Destruction's debut in that the OTT drill to the head didn't work at first. The solos are not special and the production needs a good shot of… coming out of the 60's or at least be given to someone who knows what they are doing. But man, over time, the catchy hooks and aggressive delinquency of youths going for it on a dime budget just won me over. Sort of a garage days thrash gone on a killing spree charm. A punk attitude of just doing and moving onto something else. Great things to come for these purveyors of alcoholic simple thrash.




Omen - The Curse




Like some throw back to five years earlier, we get Omen stomping onto the scene with their third album, still fighting a loosing battle to keep the pre-thrash underground alive. Sort of Saxon with less British Invasion and more German tradition, a rough be well produced backlash against punter evolution. Pre-power, pre-doom, no where near thrash, traditional metal that comes from pubs in some other time, and frankly a few licks that didn't quite cut it in Maiden. But it's all good, because the hooks built around those licks, the punches and the drinking, the honest no tricks go in and play metal old school way on the equipment that got us here way these songs roll off just wins one over. Make sure you get the reissue with the Nightmare EP added on as well.





Cinderella - Night Songs




For some reason, I've always dug Cinderella. I mean, they have the name and look of everything that seemed to gone wrong with Glam. The fact they were "discovered" by Bon Jovi didn't help either. But these dudes honest take on modern hard rock burnt through a blues appreciation just rubs me right for its sincerity. Like Ratt, glam is just a sign of the times while the band would be here anyway, if that means anything. Plus it helps that these songs have a real undertone of metal foundations, a sort of quiet steel delivery that relies more on punch than melody. Hook and catchy at times? Sure. But still done with deliberate drive that lasts well beyond any attempt to capture a quick hit.

Night Songs would put the band on the map for hit "Nobody's Fool", a top 20 hit that would help push the debut three times platinum no less. Yet the album doesn't crank like a top 40 hard rock album of the 80's. Sure, songs like "Shake Me" capture the hit making machine of the times in a guilty pleasure sort of way, but then you turn around into the title track which burns methodically.

Night Songs proves that, while there is a lot to complain about mainstream metal, you can find some great albums if you are willing to look. A foot in both worlds, the style of one with the integrity of the other, a sprinkling of the classics giving the package a luster that still shines today.




Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin




Oh yes… The Oz-Man cometh. This was really a signature album for 80's Osbourne, and probably his biggest commercially outside of No More Tears. His band is tight and smoking, as he rips through classics as a man hell bent and back in his prime. Actually, I'll be honest, there are a number of Ozzy albums I like better, several of which go against the grain of popular convention, but this is solid and highlights metals favorite showman at a time metal was coming into its own, so here we are. One of the questionable albums I'll put on here, but this is a surreal moment of history, or maybe it's just nostalgia, that makes this an essential spring time album to pull out. Maybe that's the secret of Ozzy himself, that no matter how you turn his albums critically inside and out, they are infectious and win you over in the end. I can think of no better way to kick off the first few warm days of spring than pop this into the deck (there's a reference for you!) and blast it out the windows while driving to work. Sometimes you just need to have fun and sing along.

Or air guitar and play drums if you are inclined – Just be careful doing all at the same time while driving. Especially with that spiked slurpy along for the ride. Good times.




King Diamond - Fatal Portrait




He of the face paint and falsetto departs Mercyful Fate for a solo career, even if this is like a polished and logical evolution of Fate anyways. Add to that is a distilled and purified take on Diamond's view of mankind as epic pawn of a nightmare world. Interestingly, the sound is way ahead of its time, a sort of gothic and proto-black metal, the King himself howling tales of mystery and imagination fit for a Steven King novel gone horribly wrong. And trust me, real soon they will go VERY wrong. Tight band too, heavy riff and lead/solo work makes you realize Kind Diamond really is a band, and not just the man with back up. Very cool, and add the ghoulish one himself and you have a fine institution that will only get better over the next several albums.




Saint Vitus - Born To Late




Whoa, the great Saint Vitus is at hand and they have delivered brain damage of the heaviest sort. A sort of cynical take on psychedelic Black Sabbath, heavy as fuck riffing that is Cream all black tarred on the fret board while somewhere Blue Cheer is worshipping the wah-pedal abuse this album worships. Down tuned and abuzz with distortion, traditional metal born from Iommi's "Hand of Doom" is the order of the day with sliding solos that recapture the late 60's through the lens of a six-pack.

The mighty Scott "Wino" Weinrich has joined to add his distinct vox to Dave Chandler's guitar crunch. And man, this is what doom metal is suppose to be. I love me some Winter or oceans forbid Ahab, but this is the 70's captured traditional doom that firmly believes that riffs should be wrapped in iron then swung around the head and delivered with force to the head. Just check out this title track for the anthem of all skull crushing axes just to see how devastating the last decade can be, forbid the blasphemy, improved!

We've gone back to basics and yet pointed the way to the future of dirges. Paradise Lost is somewhere putting it together right now, so off to the future we go with Saint Vitus reminding us to keep the heavy in heavy metal.




Destruction - Eternal Devastation




So OTT you have to just sit back and stare in awe. Like their countrymen counterparts in the unholy trinity of German thrash, these guys just pull all the stops and shove it down your gullet. In some ways this is actually one of the best albums from the trio, since it does the mad axe thing but with production and actual writing depth, while Sodom and Kreator just dropped any pretense of dynamic and crushed you with excess. Not that this is light weight – Oh no. Just a little better rounded in its sense of killing purpose. Pissed off and pissed on, these guys just shred the house down. I'm sure their guitars needed therapy lessons after recording this album…

I also point to this chaotic frenzy of technical might (don't underestimate the chops this band delivers in the middle of the storm – it's tremendous) as one of the real forward steps to the death metal style of vocals. While those thrash vocals have gone from yell to bark, here Schmier delivers the biggest step towards growls yet. You can practically feel the thrash baton being handed off to Sweden on this monster. But don't fret, the board is still loaded with thrash shredding of the highest order. Getting your ass kicked never sounded so smart.




Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time




With a little more guitar crunch and the introduction of synths into their sound, Iron Maiden return with more of what brought them to the dance. Well, the synths are new and introduced but not as prevalent as we will get on Seventh Son one album hence. Maiden's growing popularity and record tours as also landed them the best studio work to date so SiT is the most polished album from the band yet, this combined with the fact Bruce sits out from writing this time and you have an album that is at once the logical Maiden album to begin the second half of the 80's while being a bit of a left step as well. Of particular note is Adrian Smith who adds some guitar melodies that show off his abilities perfectly. Steve Harris is still cranking out his lines however and is still in control of compositions – check out "Wasted Years" for Smith and "Heaven Can Wait" For Harris. No idea whose idea it was to run down to the local tavern and grab some guys for the chorus however! Or if you just can't wait for the Maiden cornerstone prog piece skip to the nine minute juggernaut of "Alexander The Great". Time and mood changes, swings and story telling, it's almost to the point where you want to tell Steve to give it a rest due to overload! But nah… Iron Maiden still has many stories to tell and with SiT the band hit a new generation of punters to jump in the metal mosh pit. Good thing since they were posed to drill the point home in one more album.

Still, for what it is, this has become the lost 80's Maiden album for me. Not because it is bad, only because it's in with so many great classics that have become the albums I reach for first. Don't listen to me, many of my friends cut their metal teeth on this one, making it one of their favorites. Onto the future we go to play with madness…




Cirith Ungol- One Foot In Hell




Not so much a metal album as alien technology, Cirith Ungol conforming to no type of metal sound proper, incalculable in where it came from or where it went. This is literally its own entity and singular sound in time. A claustrophobic yet empty sound, a sense of guitar work that's heavy on groove, grime, and the underground. All propped up with a vacuum production that adds to the outer space life-form that is these damned tracks from Mordor…

Fun analysis aside, the odd signature sounds might be comparably complex in its uniqueness, a sort of Progressive trip through medieval sci-fi and darkened atmosphere over technical rolling guitar licks. Yeeeeaaaaaa… If you figure that out, let me know so I know how to clarify the band's sound. But you'll get where I'm going if you hear it. Good band, even with the high dose of nuclear winter and completely un-commercial ambience. Managed four albums before the lidless eye would reclaim them however. Definitely a cult classic.



Kreator - Pleasure To Kill




Metallica was sharpening their thrash chops and making the riffs meaty, while Slayer was ripping you apart with speed. Kreator followed the simple philosophy that thrash was fine on its own and just found ten ways from Sunday to kick your ass with it. Pure, unadulterated, in your face till you bleed thrash; light on production because we're thrashing. Light on dynamics because we're thrashing… light on space of breath because we are thrashing. Light on everything else because we're to busy thrashing. Get the point? In case you didn't they showed up to beat the hell out of your little brother as well. Like the rest of the unholy trinity of German thrash, this is not exactly accessible thrash like Metallica was putting out (relatively speaking). This was the new frontier of the underground, so single minded that only a hardcore metal fan could love it. But that is the secret charm, the unquestionable tunnel vision that says thrash till you drop, and then you get up and do it again. Probably one of the greatest pure thrash albums most people have never heard. Sweden was watching and listening, into its hellish and aggressive grooves was the mission statement for the death revolution to come. In fact, as Possessed was pointing to Florida this was pointing to Northern Europe, both bands brothers in arms in bridging thrash to death, a missing link that locks the jaws on and twists till your ready to be fed upon.

While not the first year for some of the unholy trinity of German thrash, this is the year they all come together and stomp a mud hole in history. Sodom delivering the thrash, Destruction bringing the craft, and Kreator upping the aggression – thrash is now at it's apex and slowly bending with it's own weight to greater acts of carnage.

Put the headphones on, turn it up, and keep the breakables away.





Flotsam and Jetsam - Doomsday For The Deceiver




Fun little album here, basically your typical Bay Area thrash meets the street mosh of NY punk production values and attitude. Sort of Exodus covering Destroyer with a hangover. Probably to maniac to be on the list, but there is a certain charm to the honest mess that admits they're in the house to destroy the place along with the binge and purge. Did I mention the speed metal? That's in here to. "Fade To Black" is your go to point for that thrash chorus while the title track just cranks out with classic speed metal goodness. It all combines into a ruckus of music that meshes quite brilliantly, the album itself joining Exodus' debut as one of those underground classics that should get the same name recognition as Testament and Overkill. Sadly, today Flotsam and Jetsam are more known as trivia for future Metallica bassist Jason Newsted.

What really stands out is that, for a debut, this shows a complexity and veteran status not seen in many thrash bands; the band obviously seasoned and chop ridden. This is also shown in how the band is able to perfectly capture the different aspects of its sound, thrash to speed to even aspects of power, which is another technical virtuosity the band does great. When they combine together in "Der Führer" and "She Took and Axe" the band smokes along in grand fashion. While the band will not produce the legacy many of the thrash bands will have due to latter releases, here in the beginning F&J go toe to toe with the thrash bands and stand tall and proud. I liked it so much I actually bought it again recently to get the re-mastered 3-CD slip case version (2006).




Dark Angel - Darkness Descends




As Slayer has now nuked metal and mankind to clear the way for extreme music, a path that Possessed pointed the way to Seven Churches, Dark Angel now ride into the scene to take Possessed up on that offer. Darkness Descends is a wicked raw thrash classic that further delves into what a meat eating thrash band can sound like, all while building towards the Florida carnage to come.

And when I say raw, I mean a wall of thick brute strength. Fast as hell guitars crank out riffs like machine gun fire which combine with the bass to fill the air between you and the speakers with shrapnel. This was insane for thrash at the time, a sort of what the fuck do they think their doing, two decades later looking back I can go "Oh yea. They were schooling a whole metal seen to come!" In fact, the riffs suffer slightly since the name of the game is speed and brutality; even the singer just rips out the lyrics at ridiculous speeds. But the point is the aggression, and when those riffs combine into a whole the rhythm will seep in and rip you to shreds from the inside out. Deep in the underground, truly darkness was descending.





Megadeth - Peace Sells… But Who's Buying?




Big Dave's debut Killing is my Business… And Business Is Good was a total case of anger management spilled through unconventional and technical chaos, all loosely bound to thrash and several other laws of physics. Here, he actually applies song structures and gives us a good hook, but the secret is he still manages to keep everything else also. This makes Peace Sells… an absolute classic, a combination of chaos and order, technical ripping solos and memorable rhythms, anger with purpose, and the album that really launched Metallica's fired guitarist into orbit for a run that would be long and hard. Eventually Mustaine would have a career just as illustrious, and amazingly today more credible in the metal community. It all started here. Next to the immortal left hand of Iommi called Rust In Peace, this album sees the most tracks culled live, and for good reason: It just kicks major ass. Punk-anarchy meets technical shredding meets hooks a mile wide and… Well just check it out. This is one of the top albums of the Megadeth catalog and should be on any metal lovers want list. Megadeth is now one of the big four of thrash with PSBWB? and ready to continue killing fret boards for a decade.





Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metalicus




Man oh man… In an era when heavy metal was starting to focus on the metal with speed and thrash, here comes the debut from Candlemass that takes metal old school and turns up the heavy. Thick, fat riffs that crunch everything in a radius zone of destruction, this takes the fledgling doom sounds of Sabbath and runs epic all over the soundscape. Like their partners in the birth of doom, Trouble, the philosophy is "Why hit them 100 hundred times when you can hit them 10 times with 10 times the strength?" Then with that simple mega-riff theory of metal mastery they take the time to build headbanging rhythms into that weight. Add in lead man Langquist's epic and almost operatic (in a stage performance sort of way) vocals along with band founder (and writer) Leif Edling massive riff work and you have one of the grandest one-two punches to be delivered by a metal band. Part soaring of the heavens, part crypt delving; light from above and the darkness of a grave; a heavy head banging affair that is beautiful in its mastery of art. There is simply no way to get around it – This is an awesome album and a personal fav.

But those fat riffs and epic vocals are subservient to the timely thrash riff, or soaring power chord, and that is what makes this album so destructive. It knows how to combine old school with new school, all just to take you to school. Just as Slayer is the base for the future of extreme bands and Metallica is the future thrash and groove, Candlemass joins with Trouble in launching doom metal on the unsuspecting masses.

Why snap someone's neck when you can just cave their skull in?

Combine with Trouble, and Saint Vitus, and you know have the beginning of doom metal. Toni Iommi approves of this message!




Fates Warning - Awaken The Guardian




Sort of the bastard child of 70's Rush and early Queensryche, this is a pleasant prog-power change up in a year dominated by neck wrecking thrash. Powerful, heavy, a touch of those fat riffs I love out of Trouble or Candlemass, combined with massive song constructions and change ups. Maybe a little to much meandering Yes in there as well. I really believe that if this band would have been a little closer to the ‘Ryche for the 80's, and less 70's prog they would have been a runaway success. Not that it matters, just saying how trends worked in the 80's – This is still a great album and deserves to be ranked head and shoulders with Helloween and Queensryche for essential power and progressive metal. In fact, while Fates Warning did not invent either styles of metal what they did do was deliver the first killer statement on the subject. Those bands will just popularize it real soon.

The realization of power and prog comes from the fact the band can wind through intricate passages or just blast the roof off the house, make you think or just kill. This album thunders with a clinical steel, almost criminal the album is not held to the same lofty heights of the ‘Ryche. But that is because the band doesn't relent on it's vision, making this almost to big a pill for general consumption, punters in the know tipping a bottle a band willing to drop the hooks in favor of massive chunks of iron metal bent around thinking man passages. Oh fuck it – just by the damn thing because it smokes. Big old fat ones at that!

From here the stage is set, Helloween will popularize what will be the future of power metal on Keeper of The Seven Keys I & II while Queensryche will deliver prog metal's statement on a little classic called Operation Mindcrime. The genres are not known, but the styles are not en-route…






Slayer - Reign In Blood





And here we have it. The shot heard around the underground, and the call of arms to prepare for the metal revolution in the 90's. Oh yea, the revolution was coming. Commercial metal was already running on the road to its inevitable end, to be put out of its misery by grunge. Leaders of the genre, like Metallica would move on by the mid-90, but metal was ready. The underground was a lean, mean killing machine, and it really got its start in 1986 with Reign in Blood.

Slayer, already kings of speed and neck breaking thrash of the lowest most neck snapping hellish order, wrote one of the ultimate piece on the subject here. Speed for the sake of speed, riffs firing off like glass shards out of a double barrel shotgun, this is metal set to 10 and phasers set to kill. Thirty short minutes that rewrote what metal could be and ultimately told where it would go. This album isn't short, it's just a longer 60 minute album crammed through your senses at twice the speed.

Black Sabbath created the chunk of iron heavy metal was made of, and Deep Purple Plugged it in. Judas Priest sharpened it into a stainless steel weapon of war that the British invasion carried onto foreign shores. Metallica turned that weapon into a double barreled killing machine.

Slayer said screw it and napalmed the target… it rained blood thereafter.


This carves out its own weapon of mass destruction that never was seen before and few have feared to tread since. There is only one Slayer for the metal gods haven't had the balls to go to that well again. This album just shreds your ears off at high speeds of ripping riffs, a chaos with purpose that laughs at you from the corner for your vision. "Angel Of Death" skips all pretense of introducing you slowly to the onslaught, shoving the axe work right into your head steel first. But it's not all a wall of axe slicing, halfway in the band settles into a great slow thrash-tastic riff that crunches along with despite the high velocity. And that is the secret of this album. It combines speed, deeps wells of aggression, solos that will cut your arm off and cauterize the stump, but still maintains riffs that kill. Metal is all about the riff and too many bands today forget the riff work. Aggression and speed is fine but without that guitar riff to fuel ye ole headbanging you're losing the foundation the music is built upon.

"Piece By Piece" is two minutes, while "Necrophobic" is only a minute-forty. The first comes out of the gate chugging at speeds reserved for centrifuges, while the second works you into it before ripping your face off with an inhuman solo. But the real key is that they keep the songs short. They don't try to extend the song out and repeat everything or add pointless bridges or interludes. Reign In Blood has a Mission Statement that reads: "Hit you fast and hard." They do that and get out.

Solos just blaze all over this thing. "Alter Of Sacrifice" features axe work that I'm sure caused trauma on the poor amps. But the great thing is that this album doesn't repeat itself. The uninitiated in extreme metal might beg to differ, but if you listen and get to know the genre, things like the beginning of "Jesus Saves" stands out for the chugging melody. Well, if this was doom it would chug. Here it's more of a drive-by shooting. "Criminally Insane" brings such a neck wrecking crunch to it's opening, I'm sure concert venues single handedly keep spine surgeons employed. God that's a great deal of awesome – And your not even to the solo yet!

There is a reason this album is of such historical value, and that is not just the extreme landscapes Slayer pushed metal into. Metal Darwinism aside, this pushed the envelope precisely because of the pure epic bloodshed each track delivered. From the opening blast of shrapnel in "Angel of Death" to the hunting carnivore killer "Reign In Blood", this album tore the throat out of an unsuspecting public. It reorganized what metal could do and where it would go all the while delivering pound for pound one of the best reasons to be a metal fan. If you like heavy metal, it's not a matter of if you will like this album, but when.




Metallica - Master Of Puppets




So ends the revolution by evolution that began on Ride The Lightning, that album being part one while this becomes part two in Metallicas entry into metal history. Joining with Slayer's Reign In Blood as twin pillars of the 80's re-write of heavy metal, while Slayer points to extreme metal Lars and co. devastate the idea of what thrash can be and where it will go. Make no mistake about it, popular metal that will emerge in the 90's after glam goes the way of the dodo is started here and now.

Considered by many to be the best of the band's catalog, and by a good chunk of the population, the greatest metal album ever made. I've always preferred the peaks and raw edge of Lightning more, but that is basically my way of saying both albums are 10/10 essential classic but the former would be my choice for the desert island. But it is easy to understand why this album is the most popular metal album of all time in poll after poll. It takes the essence of Ride the Lightning and shines them with better production, sharpens the edges of the leads, fattens the riffs, all into a weapon of concussive proportions. "Battery" is simply one of the best speed monsters ever scorched into vinyl, only to be out down on the speed meter by album closer "Damage Inc". The title track, a lengthy journey through meat and riffs, textures and bruises, will make you and your unborn children headbang. Yes, it's that good. "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)" is the ballad that again rips at the end, it combines haunting lyrics and atmosphere into thrashes answer to a Steven King mental-bender nightmare. "Disposable Heroes" delivers you into the war torn front lines of shred, and props need to go out to instrumental "Orion", which is also a bit to lengthy buy makes up for it in style and atmosphere.

Combining the speed and aggression with metal with a little space and atmosphere, textures with riffs, you end up with a smart album that will still rip your head off. Only you'll rip your own head off from all torque of snapping the head back and forth. Thrash was combined with more sounds, a little progressive hiding in the whiplash, showing just how damn strong the metal frame is by using it to build old and new ideas into the same machine.

Metallica at this point in now the kings of the underground, the gateway marshals to new fans for two iconic albums that simply chew up lesser forms of music. The join with Slayer to do what Sabbath hand Purple had done a decade and a half earlier, or Priest had done a decade earlier and that is redirect heavy metal into the future. Most bands either play of the themes or add to them, and this is cool and a lot of great music is born thus. But a few have done such a devastating job of adding to the form that the music changes direction and sudden rides off down in evolutionary paths. The 80's belongs to the MTV bands then, but here metal flexed it's arm and showed what would be remembered, and that was the bands that would influence and shape the two decades that came after it.


***


In the middle of this glam was set to jump the shark, one of the biggest debut albums in history was going be released, and the man in corpsepaint was writing heavy metal's greatest horror tale.

But that is a story we will get to next year…